Incarcerating Children Research Paper

(Sameroff, Seifer, Baldwin, & Baldwin, 1993; Sameroff et al., 1998), as well as others (Rutter, 1979; Rutter & Giller, 1983), have identified several contextual sociodemographic risk factors that place all children at risk for such negative outcomes as academic failure and externalizing behaviors” (p. 441). More importantly Dallaire, (2007) further states that, “These contextual risk factors include mother's lack of education, being from a single parent home, being in a large family, being an ethnic minority, and having a parent with a mental illness (Rutter; Rutter & Giller; Sameroffet al., 1993, 1998). Many of these contextual risk factors may be present in the lives of children and families before, during, and after a parent's incarceration” (p. 441). Which can be easily interpreted that children with incarcerated parents carry adverse childhood experience (ACE’s) that inhibits the child from properly developing mentally and that these risk factors are a major barrier for this at-risk population to cope with every day situation which places them at risk both behaviorally and educationally. Another example according to Smith & Young (2017), “Also children of incarcerated parents suffer from a variety of physical and social issues such as migraines, depression,

McBride, Elizabeth Cincotta, Solomon, Amy L. Familites Left Behind, The Hidden Cost of Incarceration and Reentry. http://www.urban.org/publications/310882.html . Accessed May 1, 2014 American Psychological Association. Webpage. Washington, DC 04 01 2014 http://www.apa.org/topics/parenting/ Alex D Thio, Jim D Taylor, Martin D Schwartz.

Not only does Berstein call for an overall reform of this nation’s juvenile prisons, she goes as far as saying the practice of locking up youth is in need of a “more profound than incremental and partial reform” (13). The fact that Bernstein outlines the numerous failed strategies and goals of this practice with her compelling use of studies and statistics is enough to promote an audience to reject the practice of locking up youth. The statistic she shares that “four out of five juvenile parolees [will be] back behind bars within three years of release” as well as the studies she conducted on numerous instances when a guards abuse of power lead to the death of a child work to further prove her point: being that “institution[s] as intrinsically destructive as the juvenile prison” have no place in a modern society (13, 83). Bernstein refutes this false sense effectiveness further by sharing her own ideas on what she believes works as a much more humane solution to rehabilitating

The study of prison subcultures investigates the way prisoners adjust to prison, scholars found that the subculture of women 's prisons was much different compare to the violent and predatory structure of the contemporary male prison. Women who did not define themselves as serious criminals prior to prison continued to hold conventional behaviors and attitudes during their imprisonment, however women who adapted to prison life became heavily invested in a prison based identity. The prison culture among women was tied to family, gender expectations of sexuality and relationships. Scholars Ward and Kassebaum study of Sex and Social Structure in the prison showed that depending on their prison term it made women display feelings of anxiety, as

Within the urban communities, negative perceptions are magnified. Adolescents are more prone to be a product of their environment, especially those whose parents are incarcerated. Because of this trend adolescents are being incarcerated at an alarming rate and sentenced to adult facilities. Lambie & Randall (2013) states, the United States have imposed harsher penalties on serious young offenders, and have consequently increased rates of incarcerated youth and made it easier for youth to be treated and incarcerated as adults within the justice

An incarcerated parent family could also be a blended family or single parent family unit. The risks associated with both styles of families were previously discussed. Adding an incarcerated parent to the variables and the percentages of delinquency rises exponentially. More than 2.7 million children in the U.S. have an incarcerated parent, roughly about 1 in 28 children. About half of the youth with an incarcerated parent are under ten years of age (Church, et al., 2009, pg. 6).

The documentary, “Kids Locked in Solitary Confinement” depicts the toll that solitary confinement can have on the juvenile population. Approximately, 27% of adolescents in Riskers Island are in solitary confinement. The majority of which have not yet been convicted of a crime. However, these juveniles are in jail because they cannot afford to post bail. Supporters of solitary confinement believe that the segregation juveniles experience is not equivalent to the segregation in the federal system.

The article “Jail Is Sinking Families into Poverty, and Women Pay the Most” discusses the situation of Carla Gonzales, who is a part of a study of 300 families who are dealing with the crippling debt associated with their loved ones’ criminal convictions and incarcerations, and her family after the incarceration of her brother. Many of these families, especially the women, go into extreme debt trying to pay for lawyer fees, court fees, costs of prison visitations, and basic necessities (commissary items and phone calls) for the individual incarcerated. This debt also affects inmates after they are released as they often rely on their families, who are themselves sometimes evicted or denied housing, to find work and housing. Alicia Walters,

One relationship that is significantly affected by incarceration is the child- father relationship. Connections that were built between a father and his child change and sometimes even are damaged when the father is absent from the home and face to face contact is limited. Overall, children with incarcerated fathers tend to be a fragile population with

Lastly, it is not a good idea to send a child to jail, because when the child gets released from jail the child will not be able to handle the interaction with people after being locked away for so long if they do get possiable for

Children need to feel secure and loved and need supervision and guidance. If a parent cannot be present to care for and look after their children, it can cause the child to feel afraid and they may act out or behave in ways that they would not if the parent were living with them. Several studies have found that a significant number of children of incarcerated parents struggle with a variety of childhood problems that have long term implications for adult adjustment (Kjellstrand, 2012). Even if children visit parents in while they are incarcerated, the physical and emotional distance can become a strain on their relationship. I think more should be done to encourage courts to take families into consideration in sentencing and correctional facilities should have better resources for incarcerated parents to maintain healthy relationships with their children.

Summary Lynn S. Urban and Barb Burton conducted a case-study (2015) investigating the effect of parenting training on incarcerated women within a three year period. Studies showed that there was a negative impact on children if their parents were incarcerated, so a case study was done to increase the connection between parent and child. The goal of the case study was to stop the cycle of incarceration and bad parenting habits or styles within families. The program was conducted at the Chillicothe Correctional Center with the member of the PATCH program.

To begin with, the overall rates of incarceration in America is staggering as a whole. The population has grown exponentially during the last few decades, raising each and every year due to more opportunities in crime committing. Not only the raising rates occur on a federal level, but a state level as well. Discovered by John Hagan, a research professor and co-director of the center on law and globalization at the American Bar Foundation, and Traci Burch, assistant professor in political science at Northwestern University and Research professor at American Bar Foundation, that between the years 1920 and 1975, the state and federal prison population represented about 1 in 1,000, where as by 2001, .69 percent of the population was in prison

I tried to search about incarcerated mothers-children topics, then I found a numerous scholarly articles, but most of them come from western researchers. It is like looking for

The video that made me think the most, was Prison Kids: Juvenile Justice in America. They interviewed many kids, parents and the government officials who worked alongside these programs. This video was the most interesting to me because you do not hear much about kids being arrested. The video goes into something that was discussed in class several times, as well as a controversial topic in society.